Talk:Ordination of Women

What has the Deacon/Deaconess possibly have to do with the Priest? If there were (and, thank goodness, still are) Deaconesses in the Gr&Rus Churches, why then, in some two millenia of historical existence, have these Churches never ordained Priestesses? (if they considered them "equal to the Apostles" -- which they very much do).

To say that the Orthodox don't think that the Priest represents the Father/Son is missinformed & missinforming. Have You ever read St. Ignatius? "Have the Bishop like unto you as the Father, the Deacons as the Son, and the Deaconesses as the Holy Spirit" ... and "Have the Bishop like unto you as Christ, and the Priests as the Apostles".

Furthermore, Jesus Christ is a Person, Who has also a human Nature. Human nature can be "masculine or feminin", but a human person cannot be "masculine or feminin", but "either masculin, or feminin". (Now, the Priest is a Person, not a Nature -- to say otherwise means to be a little bit Nestorian in Theology).

The Bishop is like unto the Father, because he is the source of all Priesthood, just like the Father is the source of all Godhead (the Bishop is responsable for the ordination of Priests, either to "sacerdotal Priesthood", through Holy Orders, or to "general Priesthood", through Baptism&Consecration). The source in the Trinity is the Father, NOT the Holy Ghost, Who issues from the Father. (Are we considering here two sources in the Trinity? Are we "Spirituquists", or something ?)

We can see in the Priest the Image of the Father, or that of Christ's Person, ... what we cannot do is to see in the Priest the Image of the Holy Ghost. Luci83ro 10:52, July 20, 2006 (CDT)

Argument against

On a website (written by Fr. George of Nagoya) I read (summarized by me) "St. Basil the Great opposes ordination of female, because presbyters should represent Jesus in the liturgy. As God, he has no sex; as human he has however sex as male, so presbyters who represent Jesus in his service should be also male". I don't know where Fr. George had found this passage exactly, so no location of P.G. cannot be given now, but this argument could be included to the article. --Cat68 00:29, February 17, 2007 (PST)

Earlier Comments

Keeping in mind that this is likely to be a divisive topic, I've moved this section from Ordination to its own page.

I've also removed this paragraph from the text of the article:

The role of women has been limited in other ways also. Despite extensive participation by women in the first century as deacons, apostles, evangelists, and teachers, in the second century the church offically adopted policies that forbade women from preaching and teaching. However, they served as deaconesses from the first to the twelfth century, reading prayers for the sick. The Orthodox service book still contains the service for ordination of women to the diaconate.

There are a number of serious historical issues here that need to be addressed -- but they should be discussed at a different level. I think we want to aim for a descriptive approach, being very sensitive to NPOV. The paragraph above contains assertions, evidently based based on secondary literature. Instead, I think we should begin with the primary sources and then present the various interpretations of these things, citing who is saying what. I think this kind o documentary overview is an important part of what OrthodoxWiki is about. I don't want it to look like OrthodoxWiki is advocating one position over another, but rather is simply documenting the discussions that are taking place. Fr. John

Moved...

I've moved this article from Feminism in the Orthodox Church back to Ordination of Women because "feminism" is a huge and problematic concept, and the article deals exclusively with ordination and altar service. Moreover, "Ordination of Women" is a big enough topic to have its own page. — FrJohn (talk)